The New York Times reports: Smoking would be prohibited in public housing homes nationwide under a proposed federal rule announced on Thursday, a move that would affect nearly one million households and open the latest front in the long-running campaign to curb unwanted exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke. The ban, proposed by the U.S. Department […]
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…asks a story from NPR's Morning Edition this morning. A recent story in the Financial Times (entitled "Being 'wasted' on Facebook may damage your credit score" but behind a paywall) suggests this is a possibility, although the credit reporting industry denies it. Listen to an analysis of the ways in which various information is, or might […]
Check out this podcast, in which the reporters behind the NYT's broad and thoughtful three-part series on arbitration last week, discuss their experience reporting the story.
More than 70% of the 7,000-plus meetings of federal advisory committees in 2014 were conducted behind closed doors, according to a recent study by the Congressional Research Service. The committees influence federal regulatory policy by advising federal agencies, and the committees often include industry representatives. The Hill covers the CRS report here; the report itself […]
This morning, the Supreme Court considered whether a group of workers at an Iowa meat-processing plant appropriately proceeded as a class on their federal and state wage-and-hour claims where their proof of the amount of hours worked was based in part on an expert time study because the company failed to keep legally required records […]
As our readers will recall, under the Supreme Court's decision in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Affordable Care Act's very significant expansion of the Medicaid program will not operate in any state unless the state opts in. If a state does not opt in, its residents cannot benefit from the expansion. Under the expansion, almost everyone with […]
The Wall Street Journal reports: Most Americans have probably never heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Many will learn about it on Tuesday night when millions tune in to watch the next Republican presidential debate. The American Action Network, a right-leaning advocacy group that has spent heavily to elect Republicans, plans to blanket the Fox […]
Recent years have brought lots of litigation about food products that are labeled as "all natural" but contain highly processed or "unnatural" ingredients. Dating back much further, the Food and drug Administration has long acknowledged the confusing and even misleading use of the term, but until today, the agency had not used its regulatory authority […]
The text of the is out — finally — and it's "worse than we thought," according to a Public Citizen analysis. Among the lowlights, according to Public Citizen, are "New Rights for Fossil Fuel Corporations to Challenge Climate Protections"; "Constraints on Food Safety Provisions"; "Opportunities for Drug Firms to Contest Medicine Purchasing and Pricing Decisions"; and expansion of the […]